Medical device makers flex muscle

Several key lawmakers advocating a medical device tax repeal deal to end the current fiscal standoff could be rewarded by more than just a peacemaker reputation.

The olive branch they’re offering could boost their campaign coffers.

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Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah) are among the lawmakers urging their colleagues to end the shutdown stalemate by ditching the new levy, created in 2010 as part of Obamacare.

They also are among the top 12 House recipients of campaign cash from the medical supplies manufacturing industry, which is spending millions each year lobbying for repeal of the tax on items like pacemakers and X-ray machines, estimated to raise $30 billion over a decade.

After Obamacare passed, the industry boosted donations to candidates, growing its total campaign expenditures from about $4.9 million in the 2010 election cycle to about $6 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

“This is the way the game is played in Washington,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, which backs limits on donations. “You give the money sometimes to encourage a position, to get in the door, and make sure you get heard. And in that way, the system obviously benefits those who can afford to be big contributors.”

The tax has attracted bipartisan opponents who want it gone.

It has recently taken center stage. With the government entering a third week of a shutdown and the debt ceiling deadline looming on Thursday, lawmakers in both chambers have looked to the medical device tax repeal to forge a solution. And although the Senate seems to be heading in a different direction, the idea has vocal proponents and could re-emerge.

Kind and Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) earlier this month led a bipartisan group of 16 House lawmakers calling for a repeal deal. The idea was that Democrats would give Republicans the repeal while Republicans would drop their demands for an Obamacare delay and re-open the government for half a year.

A closer look at campaign contributions to that group showed these lawmakers received double the donations over the past few years from the medical supplies industry than the average House member, according to data compiled by MapLight, a nonpartisan group that tracks money and politics. On average, each got about $13,000 in donations since the tax became law on March 23, 2010; all other House members averaged $6,900.

During the 2012 election cycle, Kind, who said he has no medical device manufacturers in his district, received $39,600 from the industry, according to CRP data. Between this January and August — the most recent campaign contribution data currently available — he took in another $5,500 from them.

Supporters of the repeal deal say their ideas are driven by principle, not money.

“Some will try to say this is all politically motivated and all based on contributions … but there are some of us around here who actually care about policy,” Kind said.

Matheson — one lawmaker in the Kind-Dent group who Paulsen said successfully whipped support for the idea — received about $61,000 from the industry during the last election, plus another $6,000 in the first half of this year.